Digital statistics and usage in South Africa in 2018

31-01-2018

January. A time to reset the clock and start again. It’s also the time of year we look forward to when scanning the digital horizon. Whys that? Every January, the collaborative effort between Hootsuite and We Are Social releases the insightful Digital Suite of Reports. This year marks the 7th annual release and the data makes interesting reading. The pack details a full range of digital statistics and behaviours by country including the behaviours and growth rates across key digital networks, devices and mediums.

Where are we in 2018?

The global report indicates that internet usage has grown to over 4 Billion users. That’s just over half the world’s population now using and communicating through digital mediums. According to GlobalWebIndex, the average user spends 6 hours a day on internet-powered devices and services.

Africa has seen the strongest growth rates in digital – over 20% year on year. Back home in South Africa, the numbers are staggering. Out of our population of just over 57 million, just under 31 million people are currently using the internet. Social media users have increased by over 20% when compared with 2017’s data. South Africa’s 5 most popular social media networks are Whatsapp, Facebook, YouTube, Facebook Messenger and Instagram. Two of these networks and their traffic are categorised as Dark Social. Our team know how to track, measure and drive content through these Dark Social networks, but that’s for another day.

The full pack is included below, but you’ll have to navigate to the region you’re most interested in. I hope you find this as fascinating as we have.